


M42 in Orion

by stellam_ignem



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Armitage Hux & Phasma Friendship, Bottom Kylo Ren, Dominant Armitage Hux, Hurt/Comfort, Hux is in some serious denial, Kylo could not be any more oblivious, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Pre-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rough Oral Sex, erotic asphyxiation, idk that weird in between after starkiller went kaboom, phasma be knowin things fr, plot if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:21:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22262509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellam_ignem/pseuds/stellam_ignem
Summary: “It would have been easier to let me die,”“Yes, it would have. Don’t flatter yourself, Snoke would have executed me had I not brought you back.” His words have a bite he’s not sure he means, and lets them hang in the now cold, withdrawn air. When Ren provides nothing but silence, turning his head into his pillow to sleep, Hux resumes his leave. He can’t seem to breathe until he reaches his quarters and stares at the deep royal purple of space.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 16
Kudos: 177





	M42 in Orion

**Author's Note:**

> there's plot if you squint but I really needed to get out my TROS rage bc Hux and Ben deserved better. this is literally just a buildup to porn - enjoy tho

_This karking excuse of a Knight, where the absolute_ fuck _is he—_

Hux stops short of a ravine, Ren’s body sprawled out mere meters from the edge. The snow falls in unsteady time, often stopping and starting as if it cannot make up its mind. It’s deathly quiet. The only sound that emanates from the sky's the faint rumbling and tearing of _Starkiller_ , the end of Hux’s creation, the near end of everything he’s bled for. 

_All gone, because of you._

He could leave Ren there. Tell the Supreme Leader that he was too late, that Ren had stopped breathing before he got there, that _Starkiller_ had been blown to bits before could make his journey down. 

Killing him is a sweet option, and Hux lets his hand trickle down to the blaster by his hip. One shot, and everything would be gone, all his problems and trepidations lifeless in an instant—

 _Fuck off_. And that is most certainly not his voice.

Ren gasps to life and Hux has to restrain the growl that begs to let go, and slips his fingers off the blaster to opt for clenching his hands behind his back. “Get up,” he spits, and Ren makes no effort to snap back, hands digging into the snow as he forces his body onto his feet. Hux swallows at the blood. It’s seeped deep; the snow chokes on it and Hux’s eyes wander to Ren’s face. It bleeds freely, openly, in such profuse amounts Hux briefly wonders why Ren’s not dead. The bastard. 

Hux watches Ren stumble to his feet, swaying, at threat of falling down again before Hux grapples onto Ren’s cowl and shoves him forward. “Move,” he growls, satisfied at the lack of resistance as Hux marches through the snow with Ren stumbling ahead. The Knight is unsurprisingly heavy; a blood trail is left in his wake as he lumbers forward. 

“You insolent boy, you simply had to destroy everything,” Hux snarls, quickening his pace as an earthquake shocks the ground. Ren makes no effort to respond, which urges more anger from Hux. “You couldn’t do the one thing your master told you to, and lost your dignity to a _scavenger_ , no less,”

Ren responds with silence. It’s disconcerting, and Hux can’t tell if he’s more surprised by Ren or his own reaction. Something sharp bubbles in his chest, a quick second, and he blames it on the destruction of _Starkiller_ , of his life’s work. He gives Ren a rougher shove into the ship than necessary and releases the cowl, slipping towards the viewport as they ascend into the stars and towards the _Finalizer_. Hux watches through stone cold eyes, the soft and profound boom followed by a halo of black and fire and scathing light. Debris seems to fire in every which way, a grey billowing array of clouds laced with flame overcome the sky against the inky backdrop of stars. Gone. 

There’s a soft moan behind him, the ever tightness of pain, and Hux whips around to find Ren struggling to breathe, his lips near blue. He stalks forward, careful to reign in his profound rage, and watches as Ren squirms and stutters, unable to control his own pain. Hux reaches out and places a finger under Ren’s chin, tilting his head upwards, his thumb just hovering over the cauterized slash. “Refusing medical treatment, are you?”

Ren’s gaze flickers to Hux’s, cold yet curious, rage displacing the rest. Hux smirks. “With all your powers, and you couldn’t do a simple task?” 

Before Ren responds Hux shoves his thumb into the cut on Ren’s face and yanks it forward. “You’ve ruined everything, you absolute disgrace,” he hisses, his grip of stone unwavering. Ren gasps and writhes, and Hux feels a vague sense of relief at the lack of Force around his windpipe. He snarls, wicked. “Why Leader Snoke chose you is beyond me. But you will pay for what you’ve done and I promise,” there’s a deeper push, the revelation of fresh blood, Ren’s eyes squeezing shut, “I will be there to see you fucking fall.”

Hux shoves Ren away, satiated, and orders the medical droid to patch the pathetic Knight up until they can reach the _Finalizer_ and make way for the citadel. He looks at his gloves laced with blood and wipes it away, grimace ever present. 

_Perhaps he’d look more handsome with the scar._

Hux banishes the thought before it can get the better of him but his brain persists and recalls seeing the Knight’s face for the first time. 

Ren is beautiful. Not the way Hux had expected. Ren’s eyes are fathomlessly dark, enticing, strewn with cold summers and even colder winters. There lies a haunted darkness within them that Hux is entranced by; the constellations of black freckles and dark lashes elegantly arranged on Ren’s face only fuel his damned curiosity. His jaw is angular, nose prominent and proud, lips almost drawn on in their fullness and elegance. His thick, full hair is raven black, graced by waves that are just shy of touching his shoulders. Ren is an amalgamation of disorder and crude angles turned breathtaking. And young. Desperately young, like his face and demeanor hadn’t caught up with the rest of his daunting, muscle-dense body. Hux has always thought Ren was possibly older, or perhaps they shared the same number of standard years. The boy is, at least, four years younger with a voice to match. 

He remembers hearing Ren for the first time without the blasted modulator. His voice had been far too soft for anyone to be afraid of, for anyone to shudder at. It’s, dare he say, borderlining kind. _Weak._ It betrayed the lost boy beneath layers of onyx, and Hux had wondered what Ren’s voice would sound like against his neck. 

Even in his rage, his body’s basest desires wring everything out of him. He swears. 

Aboard the _Finalizer_ , Hux makes his way to the bridge and dispatches coordinates to Snoke’s citadel. Under the careful scrutiny of his crew, he privately assigns Mitaka to regularly update him on Ren’s condition, blasted as he is. He doesn’t want to face the unmistakable rage that awaits him, both from Ren and the Supreme Leader, and braces his hands along the railing. 

“Sir, we will report to Leader Snoke’s citadel within two standard cycles.” Mitaka approaches and Hux stands again, pulling himself up to his fair height. “Why the delay?”

“Engineering needs to work on damage to one of the Gemon-8 engines. There’s a 36 percent chance of failed hyperdrive,”

 _Too great a risk_. “Fine.” He glances over at the Lieutenant and waits for the rest. “Lord Ren is refusing medical treatment,” is the soft beginning of a hardass headache.

Hux despises the damn concern that comes before the frustration. “Why?”

“Medical claims he won’t say and they are requesting you, sir. Lord Ren won’t speak to anyone but you about it,”

“Has he resorted to flinging around the staff?”

Mitaka grimaces and Hux suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. His jaw sets. “Fine.”

—

For all it’s incredible properties, the sharp, antiseptic smell of bacta gel was enough to make anyone gag. Hux walked through the wave of it upon entering the medbay, intoxicating, rushed by a nurse and who he assumes is the medical director. There’s a vague memory of this woman’s promotion. “What’s the matter with him?” Hux pinches the bridge of his nose and holds his wrists behind his back. 

“He’s refusing medical treatment, and will only speak to you,”

“Have you managed to keep anything on?”

“The bowcaster shot to his torso is bandaged, but he won’t allow us to work on his shoulder and face. He needs to be placed in a bacta tank, General, or a bacta suit at the very least,” the medical director gazes straight through him, lips pulled to a thin line. Hux notices shades of grey along her hairline, wrinkles around her mouth and sharp green eyes. There’s a scar on the corner of her mouth, hardly noticeable in the right light. He likes her tenacity.

“Let me see him.”

The room they’ve confined Ren into is small enough for Hux to swipe away the medical droid debris with his feet. The sliding door clicks shut as Hux stalks over to Ren’s bedside. The Knight looks feverish, eyes glassy and breath short, sweat making his body glisten in the sterile light above. It churns that peculiar _concern_ again, a strange pull against his ribs. Ren looks more childlike under the lights. Lost and scared. Very much that same boy Snoke’d told him about from the beginning. 

There’s a cool breath in his head again. “You know better than to be in my head, Ren,”

Ren growls and jerks back, the presence in Hux’s head immediately gone. “I know you were thinking about me before,”

“Of course, you’re refusing medical treatment and I can’t see a karking good reason why,”

“The pain gives me strength, makes me stronger with the Force,”

Hux suppresses a laugh and finds himself more annoyed by it. “I have orders from Snoke to deliver you to him alive. This,” he gesticulates to Ren’s body, “is not at all what I imagine the Supreme Leader had in mind,”

“How do you know what he wants from—”

“Would you rather fall to infection and die? As much as I relish the thought, I have my orders and I intend to follow them,”

Ren opens his mouth to speak and Hux finds himself pressing his thumb into the raging pink tissue on Ren’s cheek again. Ren falls silent, too quickly for Hux’s liking and stares up at him, eyes wide and perhaps afraid. “You will accept treatment,” his voice is far softer than he would have liked and there it comes again, the tooth aching concern and uncharacteristic softness. “Don’t make this any harder than it should be—”

“I thought killing my father would make me stronger,” Ren starts and Hux has the vague feeling the boy’s becoming delirious. His feverish skin is a dead giveaway. “But it didn’t. I feel worse, nothing makes sense—”

“You need treatment, Ren,” Hux stops his hand from reaching out to brush away the sweat-laden hair plastered to Ren’s forehead. The concern raps harder on his ribs and it bites into the bone. He doesn’t like Ren and yet there is this pain in his hands and chest, a strange nausea embedded somewhere in his gut and throat at seeing Ren like this. It tastes bitter. “Accept the treatment,” Hux murmurs, soft. Ren closes his eyes and resumes his fitful muttering, enough acceptance for Hux to beckon in the medical droids and doctor. 

“The fever’s making him delirious,” the doctor confirms as she shoves an IV into Ren’s arm and begins the saline and antibiotic treatment. Hux watches, a meter away, shocked still by the unease in his gut. “What is your name?”

“Dr. Jylis, sir,”

“I expect periodic updates on his condition. Refer them to Lieutenant Mitaka,”

“Yes sir. He should stabilize in the next hour,”

“Good.”

The bridge is silent, comfortably so, a distraction from the mess lying the medbay on the other side of the ship. Hux watches the stars streak by, unnoticed, color swatches of nebulas and bleed against the black sky. It’s the same fire red and emerald green of plasma from an hour ago. 

“Mitaka,”

A scramble of boots. “Yessir,”

“Updates on Engineering,”

“Some progress, failed hyperdrive is still at 36 percent,”

“Any other damage?”

“Shielding is up at 85 percent, trackers stable, TIE fighters armed and repaired,”

That’s better news than he would have hoped, and it stirs a faint sense of calm. The New Republic and her rebels would be coming soon to reassess the damage, look for survivors. A soft course for the citadel with deactivated comms would work, would make them disappear if only for a short while. They needed to appear invisible before the Resistance. “Deactivate comms and begin a steady course for Byss. Any communications not for or from the Supreme Leader must be approved by me.”

“Yes sir,” is the unified reply. 

“Mitaka, notify Engineering I am coming to assess the damage.”

It’s been awhile since he’s been elbows deep in engine machinery, hands covered in grease, the familiar comfort of clunking and machinery coming all into place. Simple. He’d worked on speeders often during his time in the Academy, poor gears the victims of the anger festered towards his father and his classmates. Constant doubts of self-worth, a rummaging of hatred, rage.

There’s a heavy bustle around the engine in question. There are cries of attention and the simultaneous slapping of boots at Hux’s arrival, ones he waves off until he reaches the group of troopers and engineers festering around the ion core. “Status report,”

“The combusters have taken damage from the previous attacks, sir. We have replacement parts, it is simply a matter of changing everything out,”

The woman that speaks to him barely reaches his shoulder, red eyes sparkling and strands of black hair sprouting left and right from her bun. There’s sweat on her temple, not from the intoxicating heat; he thumbs his blaster in morbid curiosity. “Your name?”

“First Engineer Vilar, sir,”

“Show me the damage.”

He’s led up a mess of scaffolding towards the ring of the combustor, its cold unfamiliar and taunting; there’s a corner of mangled and burned metal, melted instantaneously upon impact. It does need replacing, the entire kriffing thing. But there is something he can fix. “Vilar,”

“Yessir?”

“Bring your kit. Allow me to show you something.”

Mitaka finds him an hour later, elbows deep in replacing a compromised piece of wiring and plating, gloves stuffed in the pocket of his greatcoat that’s hanging sweetly over the railing of the scaffolding lift. “General!”

Hux climbs out, swiping a towel off the kit to wipe his blackened hands. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“I have updates.”

Hux nods and turns back to Vilar. “I expect this fixed in less than two cycles,”

“Yessir!”

Her excitement is enough to instill an odd sense of satisfaction at having helped. _They need me_. 

He climbs down the scaffolding and back in the direction of the bridge, Mitaka on his heels, away from prying ears and towards silence. 

“It’s Lord Ren, sir,”

Hux controls the urge to grimace. “And?”

“He’s stable and back in his quarters, sir. Requests to see you,”

“Tell him I’m unavailable,”

“He wouldn’t take no for an answer, sir.”

Hux doesn’t know if he should feel impressed for Mitaka having predicted his exact reaction or annoyed at Ren’s persistence to see him. _Pathetic, what a child. Can’t do without the guidance of anyone._ Yet he finds himself making headway for Ren. 

He overrides the code to Ren’s quarters and makes his way inside. Aside from the disgustingly teenage black and sparse decor strewn everywhere, there’s a stifling silence. The nebula from the viewport twinkles softly in the distance and bathes the room in red and pink light. _Fitting_. Hux’s eyes fall to the bed pressed up against the wall, occupied by a teenage boy in an unfamiliar man’s body. There’s bacta oozing from the bandages around his face, stark white gauze around the shoulders and abdomen, chest rising and falling in soft succession. There’s a guilt in Hux’s mouth, one he’s tempted to wash out the second he can taste it. 

“Hux,” Ren starts, voice rough and quiet, head turned towards the viewport but eyes still closed.

“Ren,” Hux begins carefully, hyper aware of where he’s standing out and how stupidly quiet it still is. 

“When are we reaching Byss?”

“Not for another two cycles. There’s damage to one of the Gemon-8 engines,”

“Hyperdrive?”

“36 percent chance of failure,”

“Not the odds you like,” there’s no malice in the voice. Kindness instead, and Hux feels the muscles in his arms and face loosen and ease. His feet move to the bed, to Ren’s side, drowning as he sits down when Ren makes no movement otherwise. Ren’s eye struggles to open even in the lack of light, but Hux can feel his gaze rake down his body and skin and he swallows. It would take him many, many, _many_ glasses of Arkanian wine for him to admit the lack of any viable fear of Ren and instead an off sort of respect. A young prodigy driven to a power greater than himself, fighting for the same command and respect Hux’d fought tooth and nail for.

The Academy taught him that an individual’s reaction to trauma is binary. Some become stronger and develop greater mental fortitude. Others crack under the traumatic pressure, receding into a depressed version of themselves. Ren is the awkward middle. _Truly a win and study for the psychological sciences_ , he thinks, like the rest of him. From his bare understanding of the Force, there’s the dark and the light, opposites of the same coin, feeding off of each other. There’s the masters of light, the Jedi, then the masters of dark, the Sith. Ren claims he is neither, yet more in tune with the rageful, painful, passionate ends of the dark. Hux could kill billions without a second thought. Ren killed his father, children, countless more, claiming it brought him closer to the dark. But anyone would be blind to not see the cleave down the middle of Ren’s heart, where the division of light and dark lie stark against a red backdrop. Trauma made Hux stronger, powerful, the face of the First Order with a title he wears proudly. Trauma scarred Ren, drove him deeper into himself and his pain, made him rageful and unstable and insecure despite the power he could command. 

“You’re thinking too loudly,” Ren starts, eye closing again, voice soft as he takes a labored breath.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re projecting. I don’t know what you’re thinking, only that you are. And you project incredibly loudly,”

“That’s nonsense,”

“Is it? You haven’t disagreed,”

Hux cocks a brow, matching Ren’s cocked half-smile that’s illuminated by the nebula dancing in the viewport. It’s the Orion 6A of this particular quadrant, if he recalls correctly, moments before there’s a soft brushing against the back of his forehead and Ren’s small look of wonder. _What are you doing in my head, Ren?_

_The nebula, what’s it called?_

_You didn’t answer my question._

_This is simple communication because I’m too tired to speak. If I wanted to delve deeper I would have._

_Would I feel it?_

_Certainly._

Hux allows himself the small luxury of a smirk. _Orion 6A, a diffuse emission nebula. It makes its own light in space, and the young stars are used to power many of our_ Destroyers _._

_Where do the colors come from?_

_You never learned this?_

_It has been years since I’ve learned._

_Different colors are caused by different kinds of hydrogen, sulfur, nitrogen, helium, and oxygen ionization. Dust interferes with the light, and creates different intensities of the same colors._

Ren turns his head to look outside as they pass bone-white dust encircling a star coming to life. The room drowns with light, intense enough for Hux’s eyes to squint and look away as they pass. Ren’s bandaged body is centimeters away from his hand, and the unnatural, toxic urge of concern and touch threaten to breach the surface of his ribcage. 

Ren turns back, lone eye soft with wonder. _Incredible._

_Yes, quite._

_This is the most we’ve spoken without tearing each other apart._

_Don’t speak so soon, Ren._

Ren makes a noise resembling a chuckle and turns to lie on his back and face the ceiling, eyes closing as the starlight begins to fade, and Hux wonders if Ren’s ever looked this pale or if it’s a simple trick of the light. There are purple crescents under his visible eye, and suddenly he looks far too old to be lying in bed like a child. Or perhaps it’s the reverse: too young to lie in bed like an elderly invalid. Hux stands swiftly, turning towards the door before a hand wraps his fingers in a faltering grasp. He’s afraid to move, heat rising to his cheeks. He focuses on keeping his breath steady, heart rate even, hyper aware of Ren’s ever omnipresent Force. 

“Thank you,”

Hux swallows. His thumb finds the knuckle in Ren’s and presses down and away, not unkind. There could only be one thing Ren was thanking him for. “I was simply following orders,” Hux responds, grateful for the steadiness in his voice.

“It would have been easier to let me die,”

“Yes, it would have. Don’t flatter yourself, Snoke would have executed me had I not brought you back.” His words have a bite he’s not sure he means, and lets them hang in the now cold, withdrawn air. When Ren provides nothing but silence, turning his head into his pillow to sleep, Hux resumes his leave. He can’t seem to breathe until he reaches his quarters and stares at the deep royal purple of space. 

_“Vulnerability shall not be tolerated, do you understand?”_

_Armitage hangs his head, biting back the sniffles and tears. “Y-yes, sir,”_

_“Good. Show me you understand. Kill the porg you’ve grown so…_ disgustingly _attached to,”_

_Armitage jerks his head up, eyes blown wide, cascade of tears threatening to fall back down all over again. He bites down on his tongue before the sob can escape, before his father raises his hand again. He nods, takes the blaster, and aims._

_One of the cleaning droids reports having had much trouble wiping up the blood on the back veranda._

Hux drives the memory out and away from the forefront of his mind. It retaliates with an unexpected image of Ren, so pliant and tranquil in bed, eyes soft despite their carried torment. The warmth that radiated off of him in waves, despite the weakness and pain. The way he’d smiled. The way his fingers were offly soft when they’d ambled for Hux’s. His lips, plush, always downturned. The soft plane of his cheeks and cheekbones. His youthful beauty.

Hux doesn’t recall sleeping well that night.

—

Sometime around 1900 hours he visits Ren again. The morning and afternoon had been a scramble of reports, engine failure and revival, the hyperdrive just as temperamental until Hux made his damn way down and fixed a disproportionate amount of the mechanism. Hyperdrive is now at 91 percent success after the crew received a well-deserved, and perhaps mildly threatening crash course.

On the bridge, Hux watches as the _Finalizer_ makes a gargantuan amount of headway to compensate for the previous cycle. He updates Snoke on their headway and progress. There’s a strange undercurrent to their conversation, Hux’s over admittance to failure and Snoke’s reserved anger not voiced. Some part of him assumes if he’s going to be reprimanded, it will be in front of Ren. Both will be witnesses to their own punishments and the thought of it leaves a bitter taste in Hux’s mouth. 

The room is cold, more so than yesterday, and Hux searches for Ren’s body in the darkness of the room. He walks forward several paces and trips over something thick with corded muscle, stumbling to catch himself as there’s a reciprocated hiss at the intrusion. His eyes adjust to the darkness, and he spots Ren sitting cross-legged on the floor with the backs of his hands resting atop his knees. “Why are you meditating in the middle of the floor?” Hux asks, incredulous and confused. 

“Why are you intruding?” Ren counters, annoyance thick in his voice as he stumbles to his feet and limps over to the bed. 

He poses a good question. Hux licks his lips and says, “I have to make sure you arrive to Leader Snoke in one piece,”

“You don’t trust me to take care of myself,”

“Astute observation, Ren,”

“I’m fine,”

“Is that why you’re bleeding through unchanged bandages?”

Hux takes his victory and steps forward to the bed where Ren lay. “Lights at 25 percent.” He blinks out the sharp light, even faint, and takes Ren’s chin in his hand to observe the damage. Their breaths still, and Hux is suddenly very faintly aware of how warm Ren’s skin is. Borderline feverish, his eyes ringed in the faintest green that feels surprising. Green is innocence and it fights against the black in Ren’s eyes. Oddly similar to the never-ending fight of Light and Dark. Ren stares and Hux works to avoid his gaze, letting go of the scarred face to check the shoulder, then abdomen. He doesn’t need to touch Ren as much as he does, yet there’s the strange thrill of doing so, of mapping out a wildly unstable unknown to force its compliance. 

The bandages around Ren’s obliques are starting to soak through. “Stay put,” Hux orders, brushing off the annoyed snort Ren slips by as Hux ventures for the medkit. It’s perched under the sink in the refresher, unopened. Hux can’t even feign surprise. 

He returns to sit on Ren’s bed, kit opened as he rummages around for what he needs. Gauze, saline rinse, bacta gel. He lays everything out on the bed, aligned in the order he needs, struggling to focus on his own breathing than Ren’s quiet, palpable breaths, evident in the air of the room. Ren chuckles. “You don’t trust me to do this myself,”

“Clearly. These were supposed to be changed hours ago.”

_Or he wanted you to do it and knew you would if he neglected it._

Hux clears his throat and begins to roll the gauze off Ren’s body. The air smells of bloody antiseptic and copper, and an unintentional rake across the healing skin has Ren jerking back with a hiss and Hux willing himself to keep going. The skin is mottled, raging pink, the thick tendrils of developing scar tissue underlying cauterized skin. The skin heaves with Ren’s breath; craggy lines of blood have peeked out from beneath. “If you’re going to do anything, sometime today is preferable,” Ren brushes a lock of hair behind his ear. 

“Shut up and don’t interrupt me.”

There’s a small smirk on Ren’s face, quiet victory, and it only pushes Hux to finish what he’s come to do. It’s a pathetic excuse of kinds to touch Ren, and he has no doubts Ren knows or is at least suspicious of this prolonged contact. They’re lucky to go about a day without a passive-aggressive pissing contest. This is something else entirely, and Hux is infuriated with denial. 

“Have you eaten yet?” He can focus on asking simple questions.

“No,”

“You should. It will help with the healing process,”

“I was taught to meditate and fast instead,”

“So more Force nonsense?”

Hux wipes off the old bacta with intended force to keep Kylo from devolving the situation into an argument. He’s rewarded with a hiss, and can see the fist on Ren’s thigh, corded muscles and tendons unbearably tense beneath pale skin. He finishes the dressing with a line of bacta and snug gauze. 

“Why are you helping me?”

The question shocks Hux more than he expects. His mouth twitches as he gives the well modulated and practiced response. “Orders. I’ve told you,”

“It’s more than that,”

“No, it isn’t,” Hux begins, pulling on the gauze on the shoulder wound, biting his tongue at his own hypocrisy. Ren’s skin under his gloves feels oddly close to a pink glow of warmth, swirling and dancing through his bloodstream.

_You’re avoiding the question at hand._

Hux pulls his hands back. _Out._

_Not until I get an answer._

_I’ve given you the answer thrice now. Get out._

_It’s a simple question, one you’re avoiding._

_It’s not the answer you want to hear, is that it? Is that why you keep tormenting me like an incessant child without his favorite toy?_

Ren does a poor job of concealing the way he bristles. _Tell me._

_Or what, Ren?_

_I could rip you apart from the inside out._

_What’s stopping you?_

Hux gathers his hands on his lap and takes a deep, taxing breath as Ren’s presence escapes from his forebrain. Ren turns his head to the wall, as if ashamed, and Hux bites his tongue to goad him on anymore than he’s already have. He changes the bandages on the shoulder before the face, hand cupped to coax Ren’s face towards him. Ren doesn’t resist. Hux counts the small victory and begins to undo the sticky gauze. The wound is nearly healed, still a fresh pink. Hux traces it with his eyes, watches as it strikes down the side of Ren’s face like a lightning bolt down to his collarbone. Ren’s eyes flit to the blankets, cheeks red with heat. Hux stills his mouth and jaw like his father taught him to and swipes off the old bacta for a new layer. Ren is stunning up close, and Hux feels a quiet cold in his chest, that returning nagging feeling that Ren would be his undoing. Ren closes his eyes and swallows, breath held, and Hux stops his mouth from muttering an apology when Ren winces. He never apologizes, and isn’t about to start because of someone he apparently finds inexplicably attractive. 

Once the bandages are secure, Hux collects the soiled ones and dumps them somewhere the medical droid will dispose of. He hears Ren rustle and shuffle in bed as he makes his exit. He stands by the door, casting a troubled glance over his shoulder as his eyes find Ren’s slumped, presumably sleeping form, ghastly white against the black of the room. 

Hux doesn’t register Phasma’s form right outside the door and gasps, clipped and soft. “Karking hells, Phasma.”

Had it been anyone else, Hux would’ve executed them on the very platform they stood. 

“That’s a first,” She comments through the modulator, even and daring. 

Hux scoffs and walks down the corridor, pace furious and Phasma annoyingly able to keep up as if she were taking a leisurely walk. 

“Are you going to tell me why you were there?”

“I will give you the same answer I gave Ren thrice: following orders and making sure he’s delivered alive,”

“I suspect a white lie,”

“Please enlighten me,”

Phasma scoffs as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You were startled,”

“Please get to the point,”

“Your reaction assumes you were afraid to be caught. Why would that be the case if you were simply following orders?”

Hux jerks to a stop. He looks down the corridor, half-surprised to be steps away from his own quarters and thankful for the emptiness. He’s certain Phasma’s grinning under her mask. He’s even more certain he can’t come up with a viable retort to her statement. 

He beckons them both into his quarters and lets her lounge about. Years of respecting and arguably, tolerating each other is the closest Hux has gotten to a friendship. “Would you like anything to drink?” He asks, pouring himself a healthy glass of brandy. Phasma unlatches her helmet and shakes her head, lounging against the standard issue couch in the living quarters. She takes care not to trample on the expensive carpet beneath, and a small smile creeps over her lips. 

Hux perches on the other side of the couch, legs impeccably crossed, face pulled into a permanent scowl as he takes a stiff drink. “I believe I’ve come to… _care_ , for our resident Force-wielder more than I deem necessary,”

Hux takes another drink when Phasma declines to respond and rubs his eyes with his free hand. 

She laughs. It’s not mocking or cruel, but strangely genuine. Comforting, if he’s willing to admit it. There’s a heat that rises to Hux’s cheeks, one he blames on brandy, although he’s certain he’s not that much of a lightweight. 

“You’re quite predictable,” Phasma begins, Hux whirls on her in an instant. “ _What—_ ”

“You adore control, Armitage, and Ren is the perfect subject,”

It’s infuriating how much sense it makes. “But he’s a weakness I cannot afford,” the confession is soft and all Hux can think about is the blood-drenched snow from before, Ren’s onyx and pleading eyes. His pain. “He’s wild and uncontrollable, unpredictable, a child commander only because he can move things with his mind. That’s fairly mad, Phasma,”

“Which is why he needs an anchor,”

“Then we’ll be each other’s weaknesses. A poor system,”

Phasma shrugs and stands, refitting her helmet over head as she glides towards the door. Ever elegant. “Believe as you will, General. While I promise to keep this situation confidential, you must know one thing,”

Hux glances up from his empty glass, irritation pricking at his twitching fingers. “Do share,”

“Given this... new information, there are quite a number of people on board that owe me a considerable amount of credits.”

One beat. Two. She leaves. 

Somewhere down the corridor, near the General’s quarters, there is a stinging, muffled, and enraged shout of, “… _What?!”_

—

  1. Hux stands outside of Ren’s quarters, hands pressed into his lower back as he glares at the metal. 



_Why do you look like you’re about to break down my door?_

Ren’s honeycomb voice seeps through Hux’s skull. Hux shakes his head with a growl, and grits his teeth as he punches in the override code. He strides into Ren’s room, lit by the litany of stars and a nebulaic light, jerking to a stop when he sees the Knight perched against the viewport. The faded red of a passing nebula graces over Ren’s soft, pale skin, illuminating the soft edges and curved angles, his beauty and near-innocent lips. He’s wearing his cloak over his shoulders, perhaps the predicament of wearing his robes too tiresome. Hux lurks forward and stands next to Ren, hands clasped behind his back. He feels a soft coolness around his eyes. 

_We’re close to Byss._ Hux hesitantly supplies. 

_I know. Snoke will see us separately, I’m sure._

_Reasonable._

There a faint trickle of blood seeping from Ren’s cheek, so faint Hux is surprised he noticed. The soaked bandage is grossly evident. 

“Ren, you’re—”

“I know,” it’s a strangled murmur, and Hux’s hands move to beckon Ren’s face to the side. The bandage is soaked, as if the skin has been torn and abused open. “What have you done?” Hux wipes away a drop of crimson and watches, heart wrenching, as Ren drops his gaze to the floor. “It’s nothing compared to what Snoke will do to me,”

“Torture is a part of his training regimen, then?”

Ren jerks his head back and scowls. “It’s not torture, it’s conditioning,”

“Enlighten me,”

“You deny the Force, I doubt you’d understand,”

 _Petulant child_. “Do not underestimate me, Ren,” he slips, cold. 

Ren’s lips are twisted in a sort of grimace as he keeps his gaze to the floor. “It’s a test of mental fortitude,” he starts, small and uncertain, and the strange clenching in Hux’s chest returns. “He takes my mind apart and refits it back together again,”

“Is it painful?”

Ren says nothing, and instead pulls his cloak closer over his shoulders. “Yes, but it’s necessary to make me stronger.”

Pain is strength. Hux has a vague feeling Ren’s brought this up before in one of their many rage-soaked arguments, and Hux had refused to listen. He dampens down the part of him that churns with regret. 

“That’s ridiculous,” Hux begins. Ren fixes his lone eye on him, frustration bubbling to the surface almost too easily. “I knew you wouldn’t—”

“You shouldn’t have to endure torture to become more powerful than you already are.”

Ren wilts, takes a step back, frustration gone as if it hadn’t been there before. Hux stares ahead at the nebula through the viewport, watching the white-hot swirls of gas and dust pirouette into turquoise and earth-like brown. He forces himself not to look at Ren, not to look at those doe-like eyes that reveal too much too often without the mask. Hux hates him for making him feel this way. He misses the pathetic bucket, the way things were before the death of _Starkiller_. Normalcy, peace in what he could make do with Ren. 

The sharp scent of bacta pierces the room, and Hux turns to see Ren undoing his bandages whilst perched on his bed. He’s awkward, gangly at it, and Hux crosses the room to bat Ren’s hands away to do the dressing himself. Ren snorts and Hux ignores the bait. 

The abdomen and shoulder wounds take moments, and Hux begins peeling the face bandage away. It’s drenched with blood, pieces of scar tissue, and the face wound gurgles red and scarring pink. Stress has made the cut deeper, enough to warrant stitches on the cheek. 

“I have to stitch the wound, hells knows what you’ve done to it,” Hux rummages around the medkit, mind flitting in every which way, a sense of disorganization that stirs something strange in his gut. Again, torture. How many times has Ren clawed at his face and body, manic, desperate to punish himself?

His chest clenches when he realizes he will need to place Ren’s head on his lap for the best suturing angle. “Lie down, head on my lap,” he commands, soft and stable, watching with soft eyes as Ren listens. There’s hesitation in his movements, a soft grunt as he adjusts and turns his head towards the ceiling. A centimeter up and right would have had Hux spiraling into brown eyes. 

“Lights at 75 percent,” Hux squints as the sterile light blares on, sharp with disuse, hyper aware of the way Ren shifts away from the sudden intrusion. His hair is soft, unbearably so, and it falls across his neck and ear, featherlight. Hux feels his hand twitch, begging to touch. He places his gloves in the breast pocket of his overcoat, sterilizes his hands, and reaches for water and pads of gauze. They pick up the crusted and fresh blood across Ren’s face, damp; his hands steady and gentle, unlike the furious and rabid stitching he’d been taught in the Academy. There is a danger, not physical, but one his thawing heart and brain war over. 

“You’re thinking loudly again,” Ren murmurs, more fond than anything and Hux doesn’t imagine hating someone more than in this moment. “Shut up, Ren,” he mutters.

His right hand twitches again, this time in response to the crow’s feet by Ren’s eyes when he smiles. His throat rakes with breath, arid, hands working to unwrap the suture needle and thread. Forceps next. There’s a rush of breath by his knee, subtle fear, and the world is devoid of Ren’s poignant eyes as he turns and lets Hux work. 

The first pinch is always the most painful, as Hux’d been taught and felt. Ren winces, eyes pressed shut, breath rushing out between his lips. Hux says nothing, as his heart does it all for him. _It’s alright._

He’s certain Ren knows. Or has at least heard the thought. And that premonition doesn’t scare him as much as he thinks it should. 

The needle pokes but doesn’t prod, slips through Ren’s youthful skin and tightens it, pinches the seams together to create a dot work of thread and skin. Hux doesn’t feel himself breathe through its entirety, crease in his brow as his hands glide. Ren’s eyes betray a few resistant tears, slipping from under his eyelids onto the black of Hux’s trousers. _It’s alright, I’m nearly done. It’s alright._ Wordless assurances are all he can offer. 

Hux exhales through his nose when he cuts off the last stitch. He wrangles the materials away, and notices something soft between his fingers. There’s a pale hand in Ren’s hair, his own, brushing away the strands, tender and _revolting_ , yet his hand doesn’t stop. Ren’s quiet, eyes closed, the anger between his brows gone, lips parted as he breathes, the picture of peace and Hux can’t stop touching him. His thumb traces Ren’s temple, fingers bunching into raven locks, something akin to an electrical surge concentrated between his fingertips as he moves, entranced. 

“Lights at 0 percent.” 

The nebula floods the room. 

Ren remains still, sighing as he breathes, head growing heavier in Hux’s lap. Hux dares his thumb to grace over Ren’s cheek, smoothing away the skin beneath the stitches, watching as he sleeps. _Sweet, sweet boy_. 

It pains Hux to move, to disrupt the soft peace foreign to Ren’s youthful visage. His hands bracket Ren’s face as he rises, placing him back down onto the bed. Ren mumbles and shifts, crease reforming between his brow, and Hux rushes to stroke his hair and scalp into quiet. Ren opens his eyes. 

Hux opens his palm against Ren’s stitched cheek, breath steady. 

“Your thoughts are so quiet,” Ren closes his eyes again, turning his face into Hux’s palm, breath warm against the tips of his fingers. 

Hux’s hand stops, pulls away, and his body follows. 

He doesn’t pride himself on failure. Few things have gone wrong in his life, few things have failed. He is a cold blooded Starkiller, murderer of worlds and systems, the youngest general of his time with the greatest honors bestowed upon him, fit to be Emperor. The treason bubbles excitement under his fingers; Snoke’s and Ren’s deaths would be his salvation. Their ghosts might as well place the gold olive wreath upon his head. He’s killed, ravaged entire systems and hearts to be where he is now. Now that’s threatened to be torn apart by this newfound affection for his enemy, for the boy he’d been vying to kill for years. Phasma had been right. Ren craves control, Hux basks in taking it. 

He slips off his boots and places them at the end of the bed, greatcoat folded on the desk in the corner of the room. The black tunic and belt follow. The air seeps into his gold dog tags, ones he thumbs twice before making his way back into bed. Ren turns into him almost immediately, nose tucked into his neck. Hux swallows and sighs, free hand reaching up to bury itself into Ren’s hair. His chin nestles on the crown of Ren’s head, thumb lazily moving back and forth against Ren’s ear, heartbeat close to erratic. 

Ren’s breath on his throat is paced, silent, accompanied by a soft whistle as he breathes. Hux’s hand travels from Ren’s hair, towards his jawline. Bone braced against elegant fingers. Hux moves his head down, eyes lidded, lips ghosting the skin on Ren’s forehead and nose as he lowers.

Ren’s eyes pierce the darkness. They glint, soaked in the nebulaic light. Hux exhales, smoothing his thumb across the plush lower lip in front of him, pushing down to reveal teeth. His gaze flickers to Ren, who exhales and presses his lips to the thumbnail pressed against him. Hux’s body signals the attack.

Ren tastes vaguely of mint, his mouth warm and inviting as Hux licks his lips apart and pushes in. His hand finds Ren’s neck and squeezes, stabilizing pressure, eating up the moan Ren surrenders and sliding forward to press their bodies together. He slips a hand over Ren’s hip and pulls, met with muscle and heat. Ren keens into the touch, Hux ever satisfied. His lips graze across Ren’s cheek to his neck, hand tangled in black hair, teeth scratching and marking along the open collarbone. There’s a gasp in his own hair, fingers too. Content with the litany of bruises, of crimson and purple nebulas, he finds Ren’s lips again. They kiss reminiscent of each other’s salvation. Reminiscent of air, and Hux can feel his heartbeat throbbing against his ribcage when Ren wraps an arm around his waist and pushes him in. 

Ren parts first, mouth open and hot as he breathes against Hux’s neck. Hux sighs, sated. A small silence follows, only their breathing, Hux’s fingers tangled in Ren’s hair. He can feel Ren shift, pressing himself further down to bury himself against pale skin.

_You’ve left me bruises._

Hux chuckles at the intrusion. It’s a soft weight in his mind, gentle. _I must commend you for your observational skills, Ren._

Hux feels a smile against his chest and turns, hand finding home against Ren’s cheek. “You sweet, sweet boy,” he says softly, unable to help himself. His thumb smooths over unmarred skin, careful of the stitches, quiet with satisfaction as Ren drinks up the praise. 

“Please stay,” Ren curls a hand over the gold dog tags currently abandoned between their bodies. Hux can feel Ren blush, if the heat under his fingers is any indication. 

The time reads 0135. He can spare a few hours, share this newfound warmth. His lips quirk into a kind smirk. “I never knew you to be the kind to ask politely,”

“How can I resist when you call me such things?” Ren whispers, smile ghosting his lips, fingers hovering against Hux’s lips and the corner of his mouth. Hux turns, kissing each finger before slipping down across a rough palm, the jutting wrist bone. Up the forearm, inner crook of the elbow. The massive bicep and deltoid, marred with scars and a light smattering of moles. _Beautiful._ Then the neck, lips careful of blood and bandages before he’s looking down at the moon-face below. His eyes flicker to Ren’s, who looks as if he can’t decide if he should sleep or watch. Simultaneously entranced and confused, perhaps unable to see his own beauty or strength. His skin tastes of blood, a copper taste that seems to strengthen no matter the relentlessness to wash it away. Hux ends his journey with a soft kiss on the lips. “It’s a shame you cannot see your own beauty, Ren,”

 _It’s not a topic of conversation I’m familiar with._ Ren turns and Hux stops him with a hand. He looks down at amber eyes, thumb brushing across skin.

_Then let me make you familiar with it. You deserve to know._

_Please._

Hux runs a hand through Ren’s hair and guides him to his neck, jaw pressed to Ren’s temple as a new exhaustion trickles over his bones and sinews. Ren’s body follows. 

“Sleep, sweet boy.”

—

_Running why is he running? It’s someone screaming, mother please, I’m sorry, mother mothermothermother I killed him I killed father I never meant to forgive me I couldn’t stop myself mother I killed him mother—_

_He is my guide my master my path I cannot stop you must understand this and now one will be my undoing—_

Hux jerks awake. There’s an unfamiliar weight on his chest, warm and thick, soft hair under his chin. Ren with his brow creased, mumbling feverish, fingers curling into the heart next to Hux’s ribs. He glances at the clock. 0521. 

“Ren,” Hux murmurs, hand resting on the massive arm on his chest. “Ren, wake up,”

Ren stirs and stills, eyes opening against nothing but darkness. Hux can feel a hand shift and clench into the sheets by his side, that ever present concern not far behind. He takes a hand and lifts Ren’s jaw. Thumb stroking the skin, he whispers by with a soft press of lips to Ren’s own. “Go back to sleep.” 

He’s met with little resistance, a simple groan before Ren tucks himself into the crook of Hux’s neck again. His fingers card between black curls, back and forth, back and forth, mind deep in thought, Ren’s soft breaths deepening and quieting. It must have been a Force projection, one Ren wasn’t even aware of. Hux glances down at the warm body next to him, hand still carelessly moving, slipping down to cup the hard angle of Ren’s jaw. He brushes a kiss to Ren’s lips, nose, forehead, hand once again lost in a sea of inky locks. There’s a faint tugging at his heart, incessant jerks, something grossly akin to a concern he can’t even deny he feels anymore. 

His feet touch the floor moments later, glance turning over to Ren’s sleeping form. He pulls the comforter over Ren’s shoulders, hands lingering over strong, taut muscles. A kiss to the forehead later, he’s dressed and out into the corridor. His gloves readjust against his palms, fingers flicking through the messages and updates on the pad. His eyes register the words glaring back at him. Yet his mind loiters back to Ren’s body, splayed and open and overwhelmingly warm. Ren’s lips between his, open as he mewled with each of Hux’s kisses. Impossibly soft hair, a true feat with how often it was clamped beneath the bucket posing as a helmet. Ren’s vulnerability had taken Hux off guard; both of them could kill each other if they wanted, if given the opportunity. 

It dredges up a dangerous desire Hux once had buried back in his Academy years. A desire he’s less than privy to follow, a desire a ghost of a lover had placed against his neck:

_The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it._

That lover died days later in during Force-resistance training. 

— 

They reach Byss at 0701. Hux only catches a fleeting glance at Ren’s departure from the _Finalizer_ , gone for however long Snoke decides. 

If Ren misses Hux it’s truly lost on him. He doesn’t spot the Knight once through whatever grueling training regimen Snoke has in mind. He wasn’t sure what to make of what Ren had briefly said about it. Taking his mind apart and putting it back together again. Sounded terribly cryptic and cliche, not unlike what Ren is to begin with. 

With engine and infrastructure repairs nearly done, Hux is grateful for their expiring time on Byss. Even aboard the _Finalizer_ , he can taste Snoke’s quiet anger and disappointment, unbridled dissatisfaction. Part of him feels relieved the brunt of it is taken out on Ren. The rest churns unsteadily with the lack of intuition with where Ren is, what he’s doing, what he’s suffering through. Hux distracts himself from his ever-wandering thoughts deep in the belly of one of the engines, several TIE fighters, in the star-kissed amber of his whiskey in his room. He doesn’t sleep and he blames it on Snoke’s too close presence. Not of the lack of Ren’s presence.

Their fourth day. The day of departure. An hour into the waxing day cycle, Hux receives notice of an incoming ship preparing to dock in one of the hangar bays. He pulls up video feed, repulsed by the wave of concern and the held breath in his chest as he watches a black-clad figure almost fall out of the cockpit of some ship. Ren lands on his feet and lurches forward, hand splayed on metal, and it dawns on Hux that there are no stormtroopers to be seen. Ren lifts his head, his rabid pulls of air into his chest evident without the audio, and stares into the same camera Hux is staring through. Hux holds his breath, bewildered. Ren flicks his hand before he half-collapses onto one knee and the feed goes black. 

Hangar 8 is empty when he reaches it, still devoid of stormtroopers, and Hux forces the soft clicking of his boots to ease his racing heart as he approaches Ren’s heaving form. His feet move featherlight, hands wary, approaching an injured animal entirely capable of killing him without touching him. “Ren,” he starts, coaxing forward. The Knight draws in a shaky breath. Soft acknowledgement. 

“Ren,” Hux begins again, hands finding the Knight’s jaw and tilting it up, brushing away locks of intrusive hair. The stitches have dissolved. Ren makes no effort to pull away. He coughs, sputters, eyes everywhere but on Hux as he forces himself to stand, legs unstable. He falls again, this time chest first into Hux’s chest, scrambling to move away before Hux pins his hands against Ren’s shoulders and shoves him up. Ren makes a small sound, like a wounded animal, tears of exertion running down his face. His fists are shaking, his shoulders too, breath erratic and pained. Something deep in Hux grinds with rage against Snoke. “Come, Ren,” he manages instead, throwing an arm over his shoulders, other hand clasped at Ren’s waist. 

They drag and lumber to Hux’s quarters. There’s no one to intercept them, no bodies but their own, and Hux knows it’s the doing of the Force. Understandable. No commander would want to be seen like this. 

Hux guides Ren to the ‘fresher of his quarters to start a hot shower before his hands begin undoing Ren’s clothes. The Knight offers no resistance, too focused on his breathing. The cowl slips off first, followed by a belt around the waist. Next the boots and socks, set away with careful precision. Nothing falls to the floor in disarray. Hux makes certain of it, and catches a soft tear on Ren’s cheek with his thumb. Ren dampens his pride and makes blessed eye contact. There, again, the doe eyes and tortured gaze. Ren glances at Hux’s lips, once, and Hux seizes the kiss he’s been offered. He sighs, relieved, hands framing Ren’s face before trailing down his body to grip the waist. Ren lets go, and buries his face in the crook of Hux’s neck, and Hux can feel the hot and wet mess against his skin. 

“Go to bed once you’re done,” Hux orders, not ungently, tucking a lock of stray, inky hair behind Ren’s ear. Ren nods, minute, stiff as he pulls away and wipes at his face and backs away. “Will you be back?” He asks, an indirect plea, voice so soft Hux isn't quite certain if he's imagined it or not. There's an afterthought of killing Snoke, one he rushes to dampen down before Ren catches it. He can't help himself. He's always been protective of his things. His valuables are far from any exception to that rule.

“Yes, yes of course.” It's all he can manage under that gaze. He wipes another tear away from a dirtied cheek and leaves.

Hux finds his hands on the railing of the bridge, muttering orders to Lieutenant Mitaka to carry out about their next course. So far it’s to meander the galaxy until they receive more orders from Leader Snoke. Hux doesn’t plan on staying within five lightyears of Byss, and decides to take them towards Naboo. Paying the right people would allow them rest, a distraction from everything else. “Lieutenant,” Hux begins.

“Yessir,” Mitaka replies. 

“Ensure that I am not disturbed until I notify you otherwise.”

He makes his way back to his quarters, mind silent, heart calm. Ren needs him now, relinquishing his control to Hux’s own bony hands and soft palms. His fingers follow a familiar pattern over the keypad to his quarters and he steps in. It’s dark, the trickling starlight illuminating the hard curves of Ren’s sleeping face. Hux undresses to his regulation tank and briefs, clothes folded and organized away, his routine taken care of before he rummages around his dresser once more. He pulls out a fur throw, made of some exotic animal he can’t quite remember, and pads his way to his bed. Ren wakes as Hux tucks the blanket around his form. “Hux—”

“It’s alright,” Hux cups Ren’s cheek, momentarily, before slipping under the covers. Ren turns, pliant, eyes half-open yet sparkling, lips parted, and Hux fits his lips between the gap in Ren’s. Ren sighs, presses forward, and Hux drinks up each and every small noise Ren surrenders. He slips a hand into black hair, lips finding the softness of Ren’s neck, suddenly aware of Ren’s near nudity in bed. He feels his dick twitch with interest, teeth beginning to mark and possess, and Ren becomes more vocal. “Sweet boy,” Hux mutters, licking and kissing back up to Ren’s lips, receptive to the way Ren grips his hips, fumbling to touch all of him, mouth hot and eager, whimpering. A hot coil of desire plummets from Hux’s heart straight to his dick.

Ren counters with near-identical intensity, eager and impassioned, hands everywhere as Hux drapes his body over Ren’s and tugs at his hair. Ren gives a jerk of his hips, their dicks rubbing deliciously against one another, moaning as he attempts to do it again. “Don’t,” Hux warns, lips and tongue harsh against skin. Ren frowns in frustration, breath working harder as Hux scrawls a bruise into one of Ren’s pectorals. “You’re so good like this,” Hux breathes, receptive to the heat under his fingertips, and Ren squirms, unable to touch the way he wants. “So good,”

Hux trickles a hand down to the tent in Ren’s briefs and squeezes, the weight in his hand hot and heavy, twitching. He squeezes again and Ren jerks with a whine, hair falling onto the black pillow. Hux is too late to stop the Knight from flipping them. The chastise is lost halfway in his throat once Ren hikes up Hux’s shirt and begins to kiss and nip down the porcelain chest, tugging down Hux’s briefs. Hux hisses at the cold air that hits his dick, soothed by the sudden warmth of Ren’s breath. He lumbers to his forearms, groaning deeply at the tongue that kicks broadside against him. Ren’s mouth is velvet soft, delicious heat. Hux digs a hand into Ren’s hair, pushing it away from those beautiful lips that suck and caress his dick. He tightens his grip and Ren moans, and Hux starts to fuck Ren’s mouth with incessant, harsh jerks of his hips, met with a litany of moans and startled breaths. 

Hux forces his dick out of Ren’s mouth, hand supporting Ren’s forehead, staring at closed eyes and heaving chest. The drool and precome dripping down Ren’s chin glistens in the half lit bedroom. Hux grabs him and tugs him forward, kisses furious and desperate, hands digging into black locks. 

“I want you—” Ren struggles, hand down between his legs, sweating and so feverish in his movements Hux can only stare in awe. His hands find Ren’s biceps and flips him over, knocking Ren’s hand off his dick. He’s met with a whine and shiver of resistance and his hand, selfish, wraps around Ren’s neck instead. Broad hands latch onto his arm, a steady anchor; Hux can only stare in awe as Ren’s hair spills ink over the snow white pillow, pouty mouth open with deep, shaky breaths, back so perfectly arched Hux is loathe to touch him again in fear of breaking hot porcelain skin. 

“Hux _please_ ,” Ren begs through wet lashes, and it ticks off something startingly protective inside Hux’s blood. He jerks both their briefs off, lips on Ren’s, ransacking his nightstand for the coveted lube before trailing a litany of sloppy kisses down Ren’s body. At the hips he rises, parting slim thighs and squeezing gently to find Ren’s pink exposure. Ren twitches, heat exposed, imploring whines pushing Hux dangerously closer to the edge as he lubes up a finger and slips in. He stifles a groan at the heat surrounding his finger, eyes flicking up Ren’s hot, blushing, uncontrollable form. He pushes a second finger in and begins to scissor, free hand digging crescent moons into the back of Ren’s thigh. Ren begins to thrust down, sweaty and eager, moans amplifying the small space before his hand rushes to touch himself. Hux swats it away, fingers still, body looming over Ren’s form. “You are forbidden from touching yourself, do you understand me?” He growls, wrapping a steady hand around Ren’s neck, careful not to lose himself in starry brown eyes. Ren doesn’t answer fast enough and Hux tightens his grip. “Do you understand me?” He repeats, unkind, and Ren croaks out a soft, “Yes.”

“Good.” Hux presses in a third finger and finds the bundle of nerves that makes Ren’s body jerk and his mouth implore nonsense. Hux hits it over and over again, restraining his groans as he watches Ren’s trembling form; dark eyes squeezed shut, mouth trembling and begging so sweetly Hux forces control upon himself. He presses his nails into Ren’s neck and moves his body forward, lips finding lips a sudden softness among the fury. 

Hux finds a condom and tears the wrapper with his teeth, hand buried in Ren’s hair before rolling the rubber on. He coats himself in lube, slips a pillow under Ren’s lithe hips, and aligns himself with Ren’s puckered entrance before pushing in. He groans as Ren arches off the bed, lips bruised and swollen—he looks perfect. 

“Ah, fuck— _Hux_ ,” Ren’s eyes are focused on the darkness between them, graced by the withering ends of the nebula. A strand of light illuminates a pale line down the broad expanse of Ren’s body. Hux watches his hand dig into Ren’s hair before he begins a rough pace, jerking his hips in time with Ren’s moans that begin to overcome the stark quiet of the room. They sound like warm honey, languid and sweet, and Hux finds them chest to chest once he finds the familiar bundle of nerves again. One hand on the pillow, one on Ren’s cheek, grunting and borderline growling his pleasure, aware of Ren’s whiteknuckling of the sheets, the avoidance to touch unless ordered to. His thumb presses against Ren’s bottom lip and he smirks. “Such a good boy— _fuck_ , you feel incredible,”

Ren squeezes his eyes shut, whining, and Hux forces his eyes open with a jerk on his jaw. “Did I say you could look away?”

Ren shakes his head, sweaty hair clinging to his pale face, lashes watery again. Hux grins, feral. “You can touch me, boy,” he growls. Once he feels Ren’s hands on his body, his fingers wrap around Ren’s neck, palm stark against the pulse point before the fingers squeeze. Ren gasps, tears falling, mouth wide, eyes pleading. “Hux— ah, ah please—”

Hux thrusts harder, his own climax near as he grabs Ren’s thigh and straightens his back. “Tell me, what you want,” he pants, evenly, fatigue ready to settle in. 

“Let me come, please, _ah—_ _please_ ,”

“You know what I want to hear. Say it,” 

“Please let me come— you’re, ah haa— you’re the only one that can make me come, please just _let me_ ,”

“Come for me, sweet boy.”

Hux squeezes bruises into the thigh he’s holding, heart racing and breath startled when Ren comes with a jerk and a strangled cry. He trembles, sobbing through the overstimulation as Hux presses through to his own climax. 

_He looks so beautiful._

He comes with a muffled shout, lamely thrusting out his orgasm as Ren continues to sob. Hux relents and slips out, rubber in the wastebin, breath heavy. He rises to fetch a warm towel from his ‘fresher, legs mimicking soreness as he makes his short trip back. 

Ren finds him through hooded eyes, still glassy with tears, body still sprawled and pliant. Hux swallows past the pang of protectiveness in his chest, slipping a hand to Ren’s damp cheek. Ren covers the hand with his own, features slipping to soft contentedness, perhaps understanding when Hux pulls away. He drags the towel across damp cheeks and forehead, down Ren’s stained body, then the warmth between his legs. It feels oddly ritualistic, but Hux supposes there is no better treatment for a Knight, and soon discards the towel away for the cleaning droid to take care of. 

He slips beneath the covers, startled to quiet as Ren turns towards him, eyes open and deathly clear, lips parted, silent. Hux’s hand finds itself pressed to Ren’s scarred cheek, thumb wearing over the pink line. “Sleep, Ren,” he orders, soft, thumb stroking back and forth until they both slip into a deep slumber. 

Hux doesn’t recall his dreams. When he wakes, there’s a face in his chest and a trunk of an arm over his hip, soft breaths against his skin. The room is tinged a faint purple, viewport splattered with distant stars. The clock reads 0429. 

He prematurely shuts off his alarm and buries his hand into Ren’s hair. Sleep follows breathlessly, and wordlessly.


End file.
